Blasphemy

Louder murmurs, nods of agreement.

“Willy, you have every right to feel as you do,” said Ford. “But let me say in our defense that part of the problem is, the Navajo tribal government made this deal without consulting the local folks.”

“The Navajo tribal government is just a bunch of assholes hired by the Bilagaana to do the old step-and-fetch-it. We didn’t have no Navajo tribal government before the Bilagaana came.”

“You can’t reverse that. Neither can I. But we can work together to make things better. How about it?”

“Yeah, well, my answer to that is screw you!” Becenti advanced threateningly. Ford held his ground, and they faced each other. Becenti breathed hard, his skinny rib cage heaved, his stringy arm muscles flexed.

Ford kept himself loose, relaxed. “Willy, I’m on your side.”

“Don’t patronize me, Bilagaana !” He was about two-thirds Ford’s size and half his weight, but he looked like he might start swinging at any time. Ford glanced at Begay and saw from the medicine man’s indifferent face that he would let the situation evolve on its own.

The camera continued filming.

Becenti swept his arm out across the grass. “Look at this. You Bilagaana take away our mesa and drill thousands of feet through the rock so you can water your effing fields, while my aunt Emma has to drive thirty miles one way to haul water for her grandkids and sheep. How long do you think it will be before the wells in Blue Gap or Blackhorse go dry? And what about hantavirus? Everyone knows there was never any hantavirus until something happened over there at Fort Wingate.”

Several riders called out their agreement to the old conspiracy theory.

“For all we know, something in Isabella is poisoning us already. Any day now, our kids might start dying.” He jabbed a dusty finger into Ford’s chest, just below the breastbone. “You know what that will make you, Bilagaana ? A murderer.”

“Let’s keep it cool, Willy. Peaceful and respectful.”

“Peaceful? Respectful? Is that why you people burned our hogans and cornfields? Why you raped our women? Is that why you sent us on the Long Walk to Fort Sumner—in order to be peaceful and respectful?”

Ford knew from Ramah that Navajos still talked about the Long Walk of the 1860s, even if, to the rest of the country, it was ancient history, long forgotten. “I wish to God there was some way to undo history,” he said, with more feeling than he intended.

A cheap .22 appeared in Willy’s hand from out of his jeans. Ford tensed, ready to move fast.

Begay stepped in at once. “Daswood, turn the camera off,” he said sharply.

The reporter complied.

“Willy, put the gun away.”

“Screw you, Nelson, I’m here to fight, not talk.”

Begay replied in a low voice. “We’re going to set up a sweat lodge in the field. We’re going to be here all night, performing peaceful ceremonies. We’re going to take back this land spiritually with our prayers. This is a time for prayer and contemplation, not confrontation.”

“I thought this was a protest, not a damn squaw dance,” Becenti said, but he nevertheless slipped the gun back into his pants pocket.

Begay pointed to the high-tension wires converging toward the edge of the mesa, a half mile away. “Our fight isn’t with this man. It’s with that.”

The power lines hummed and crackled, the sound faint but distinct.

“Sounds like your machine’s up and running,” said Begay, turning back to Ford, his eyes neutral. “I guess this would be a good time for you to leave us to do our thing.”

Ford nodded, turned, and walked toward the Bunker.

“That’s right, get out of here,” Becenti yelled after him, “before I put a cap in your Bilagaana ass!”

As Ford approached the Isabella security gate, the crackling and humming of the powerlines got louder, and he felt a faint shiver run down his spine at the eerie noise, which seemed almost alive.

40

AT FIVE MINUTES TO EIGHT, BOOKER Crawley settled in front of the TV set in the cozy, cherry-paneled den of his house on Dumbarton Street, Georgetown, feeling an extraordinary sense of anticipation. When Spates had said he would give good value for his money, he wasn’t kidding. The Sunday sermon had been a shotgun blast. Now the Roundtable America show would unload the second barrel. Amazing that all it had taken was a single phone call and a couple of cash payments. There wasn’t even anything illegal about it, just charitable giving to a 501(c)(3)—tax deductible.

The lobbyist cupped a snifter in his hand, warming it, and took a sip of his customary after-dinner Calvados. With a blast of patriotic music, the logo of Roundtable America came on amid a digital swirl of American flags, eagles, and patriotic emblems. Then a cherry roundtable appeared, with an image of the Capitol in the background. At the roundtable sat Spates, with a serious, concerned expression. His guest sat across from him, a white-haired man in a suit, with a deep face, shaggy eyebrows, lips pursed as if pondering the very mystery of existence.

The music died down and Spates turned to the camera.

Crawley was amazed that this man, who was a complete ass in person, a cracker from the backwoods, could have such tremendous presence on television. Even the orange hair looked respectable, muted. Crawley congratulated himself again. What a brilliant stroke it had been to bring the preacher in.

“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Roundtable America. I’m Reverend Don T. Spates, and I am delighted to have as my guest Dr. Henderson Crocker, Distinguished Professor of Physics at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia.”

The professor nodded sagely at the camera, his face the definition of gravitas.

“I’ve asked Dr. Crocker here to talk to us about the Isabella project—the subject of tonight’s show. For those of you who don’t know of Isabella, it is a scientific machine the government has completed in the Arizona desert at a cost of forty billion taxpayer dollars. A lot of people are concerned about it. That’s why we’ve asked Dr. Crocker here, to help explain to us ordinary folks just what it’s all about.” He turned to his guest. “Dr. Crocker, you’re a physicist and a teacher. Could you tell us what Isabella is?”

“Thank you, Reverend Spates. I certainly can. Essentially, Isabella is a particle accelerator—an atom smasher. It smashes atoms together at high speed to break them apart and see what they’re made of.”

“Sounds scary.”

“Not at all. There are quite a few of them in the world. They were essential, for example, in helping America design and build nuclear weapons. And they helped lay the theoretical foundation for the nuclear power industry.”

“Do you see a problem with this one, in particular?”

A dramatic pause. “Yes.”

“And what is that?”

“Isabella is not like other particle accelerators. It is not being used as a scientific instrument. It is being misused to promote a particular agenda, a theory of creation promulgated by a hard-core cadre of atheistic and secular humanist scientists.”

Spates raised his eyebrows. “That’s quite a statement.”

“I do not make it lightly.”

“Elaborate.”

“Gladly. This group of atheistic scientists have as their creed the theory that the universe created itself out of nothing, without any guiding hand or primum mobile. They call this theory the Big Bang. Now, most intelligent people, including many scientists like myself, know this theory is based on an almost complete lack of scientific evidence. The theory has its roots not in science, but in the deeply anti-Christian sentiment that pervades our nation today.”

Crawley took another long, warm pull on the Calvados. Spates was coming through again. This was damn good stuff, demagoguery dressed up in sober, scientific language—and coming right out of the mouth of a physicist. Just the kind of claptrap a certain segment of the American people would eat up.

“Over the past decade, virtually every layer of our government and university system has been taken over by